maria-olivia said:We had an interesting film about HRH Princess Lilian Friday for "c’est du Belge*».
Prince Michel de Grèce said she was the most wonderful Princess he never met.
What I learned :
She never met the royal Children before she got married , so she was not their nurse.
She met Leopold III in Ostend , she was helping serving tea. She met also HM Queen Elisabeth and as the King was depressed , his mother thought it should be a good idea they met each other as Lilian was such a positive person.
The unexpected happened : lilian was pregnant . Their religious wedding (she said wrong planning !) was celebrated by Cardinal Van Roey with only Queen Elisabeth and her father Mr Henrik Baels.
Next day she met her mother , she saw the ring and said you are married with who ; Lilian said with leopold , who ? the King, and her mother was so angry about that.
What I learned also that she got a message from Sir Moncada asking to see her. She thought he wanted to dismissed from her scientific Committee but it was to tell her he wanted to marry Esmeralda ! and Alexander said I am married with lea since years.. boum boum..
She had to wait until she was 82 years to be grandmother from Alexandra Moncada.
She really wanted her children having royal weddings...
I am sad seeing Princess Mathilde wearing always the same tiara .. It is the only she have.. and it is a new one not one belonging to the tiaras from the past.. Could you imagine Queen Paola or Crown Princess Mathilde wearing Queen's Elisabeth wonderful Cartier tiara ..Queen Elisabeth was Baudouin and Albert Grandmother.
Princess Lilian sold this tiara to Cartier again after Leopold III dead !!
How was that possible ???
This is something, I cannot understand either.
Selling important Family Jewels, such as the Belgian Cartier Tiara, which did not "belong" to her, is unforgivable. Some of them has been gifted to Leopolds Mother, some others to Leopolds first wife Astrid. Surely Leopold has given them to his second wife to wear it, but those jewels were not in her POSSESSION.
It is even said, that she sold the Cartier tiara after Leopolds death without saying any single word to Boudouin - so with no possibility to give HIM a chance to "buy the tiara back" into the main line of the Royal Family.
Bye Bine
Mr. Baels , Governor of Occidental Flanders's family prefer English to Dutch.
So it was Lilian who never spoke Dutch during her whole life.
It is certainly not a fantasy.
The early 20th century reality of Flanders was very different from what you depict. The upper classes all spoke French, also the rich bourgeoisie who aspired to get higher on in life. Flemish was still very much the language of farmers and uneducated families. I specificly say Flemish and not Dutch because the linguistic reality was one of multiple dialects. A unified standard Dutch only became more common after the first world war, and only bit by bit.
It would last untill the 1960s for university city Leuven to be unilingual Dutch... The linguistic situation in Flanders has long time been a difficult one and had nothing to do with Holland.
So it is indeed hard to imagine a governor's daughter growing up speaking Flemish. Her environment would have been French (or in this case) English speaking. As a child Lilian attended public school in Britain. It's clear what her parents wanted for her.
Mr. Baels , Governor of Occidental Flanders's family prefer English to Dutch.
So it was Lilian who never spoke Dutch during her whole life.
So the article in Het Nieuwsblad which stated that Schepen (Alderman) Hendrik Baels himself made sure that the schools in Oostende should become bilingual, that his daughter Lilian Baels got the first courses flamand from the Soeurs de St-Joseph and continued in the Dutch-speaking department and even managed to speak Oostends Dialect is nonsense then?
Lilian's bomma Devisscher sold fish on the market in Oostende, Lilian's father was Flemish, Lilian's mother was Flemish, Lilian had Flemish classmates, started with courses flamand and continued in Dutch-speaking classes and still she could no speak Dutch...?
Sure... Pfff... When it is about Lilian Baels everything seems allowed to paint her as the devil in own person. By the way, in the book by Evrard Raskin (former member of Parliament) about Princess Lilian is also stated that she could speak Dutch. There were letters (in Dutch) with Flemish politicians as Achiel Van Acker and Gaston Eyskens. So the claim that Lilian never spoke Dutch is most unreliable.
According to this article about an earlier book she did learn some basics of dutch/flemish at school
'Mooi als een Griekse nacht' - Het Nieuwsblad
In the circles that she mingled in i could imagine that french and english were used much more though